On April 8, the Woodstock Preservation
Alliance submitted the 50-page document, “A Cause for Preservation,”
in regard to the 1969 Woodstock Festival Site in Bethel to the state
and federal historic preservation agencies. The group also submitted
the document to the Bethel Planning Board and to the owner of the
site, Gerry Foundation Inc. The WPA is hoping to have the Gerry
Foundation leave the site of the original concert site largely
undisturbed and formally protected through preservation even as
plans for the Bethel Woods performing arts center move forward.
Following is an excerpt from the document’s introduction; the full
file is at WPA’s web site, www.thewoodstockspirit.org.

The case file addresses historic
preservation issues arising from the submitted site plans for Phase
1 of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts as they pertain to the
historic site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. In keeping
with the principles articulated in the New York State Historic
Preservation Plan, 2002-2006, we of the Woodstock Preservation
Alliance (WPA) are acting to counter an imminent threat to the
site’s historical integrity through insensitive commercial
development proposed by the property owner, the Gerry Foundation,
Inc. (GF). We believe the GF's current plan fails to safeguard the
inherent value of the Woodstock Festival site. The goal of the WPA
is to mitigate the intrusion into the defined boundaries of the
historic site through the GF’s placement of the Phase 1 Core
Building Complex (CBC) and Farmers’ Market by showing how these may
feasibly be relocated to an alternative location nearby, which is
already owned by the GF but is outside of the historical view shed
of the Festival State Area and adjacent plateau.

The Woodstock Preservation Alliance
remains concerned about the historic preservation of the property
known worldwide as the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts
Fair. This property…has been identified as being of national
cultural and historical significance by the authors of the Draft
Environmental Impact Statement that was commissioned in 2001 by the
Gerry Foundation. It includes the original Festival Stage Area field
to the south and the adjacent upper plateau stretching north towards
highway 17B. This property was later purchased by the GF and is
included in the proposed 634-acre Performing Arts Center (PAC)
Development District in the Town of Bethel, Sullivan County, New
York, to be known as the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing
Arts.

Few would dispute that the events, which
took place on 15-17 August 1969 on this site, are of national
historical significance. While some regard this site as constituting
“sacred ground,” such an interpretation is highly subjective and not
likely to merit protection under that status by the U.S. National
Park Service’s criteria for the preservation of historic places.
However, as defined within the DEIS, the Woodstock Festival site
meets the criteria that render it eligible for adding to both the
New York State Register of Historic Places and the National Register
of Historic Places. Some of the evidence to support this
determination has been compiled by the Gerry Foundation itself and
may be found within its own documentation.

We recognize that the architectural firm
contracted by the GF for this project, Westlake Reed Leskosky of
Cleveland, is known not only for its excellence in designing
performing arts centers, but also for its specialization in
“adaptive reuse”- the rehabilitation of historic structures to serve
contemporary purposes while maintaining their historical and
aesthetic integrity. The WPA congratulates the Gerry Foundation on
its selection of this firm…

In a letter addressed to the Town of
Bethel Planning Board and dated 8 March 2004, Dr. Michael William
Doyle, an historian with thirty years of experience in historic
preservation who was hired to author part of the Draft Environmental
Impact Statement, concluded that “the site [is] of major
significance on the local, state, national, and even international
levels. With the owner’s consent, the site would certainly be
eligible for listing on both the New York State and the National
Register of Historic Places.”…[The site] remains in much the same
state as it was found when the Festival organizers leased it from
Max Yasgur in summer 1969. This is all the more remarkable given the
site’s location, a mere two-hour drive from the heart of Manhattan
and in a scenic area that has for generations been a destination for
vacationers. Miraculously, neither residential nor commercial sprawl
has adversely affected the site over the subsequent thirty-five
years.”

The Woodstock Preservation Alliance is
an organization which gives as its motto: “Working to save the
original ’69 Woodstock Site from development.”

The Woodstock - Preservation Archives uses sights and sounds of this
historical event copyrighted by individuals and corporations, and is protected under code 17 U.S.C. Â§ 107 (1988 ed. and Supp. IV),known
as the Fair Use Provision.